The need to move together for youth

May 20, 2012|Jack Colwell | Opinion

Digger Phelps doesn't have to do this. But he will. The former Notre Dame basketball coach and present ESPN analyst wasn't deterred by some city council members seemingly more interested in political bickering and protocol than in supporting his efforts to curb South Bend's youth violence.

"I'm not interested in protocol and politics," Phelps says. "If I didn't follow protocol, then give me a technical. But we need to move together when we have kids killing each other."

Phelps, who has remained a South Bend resident, began his efforts after returning home from basketball's Final Four and being shocked by a Tribune article headlined: "City sees youth violence spike."

While statistics from early in the year show most crime down a bit, the many shootings in April and May signal escalating youth violence -- kids shooting kids in turf battles and retaliation. Perpetrators may have dropped out of high school, but they're still around, unable to get jobs but able to get guns, join gangs and deal drugs.

Phelps long has promoted mentoring in South Bend schools.

And more mentoring is part of his efforts now -- only a part. He acknowledges that mentoring, though it can be so important in young lives, is a long-range help, not some magic wand to stop violence today.

In addition to seeking 500 additional mentors to reach kids still in school, Phelps is seeking to promote after-school programs and community policing that features cooperation of neighborhood watch teams and police.

His call for each Common Council member to recruit three neighborhood watch teams brought an angry outburst from one member complaining that proper protocol was for the request to come from the mayor or through a measure sponsored by a council member.

Actually, the call went out to the members from council President Derek Dieter, a police officer who backs Phelps' efforts. So does Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Phelps isn't talking about the type of "watch" in that fatal Florida shooting.

"This is not Florida. That was not community policing," Phelps says.

He wants neighborhood watch volunteers who wouldn't carry guns or try to enforce the law themselves or even summon

police for arrests in most cases.

"The police are not looking to arrest everybody," Phelps says. While watch volunteers would call in police in cases of violence and drug operations, Phelps wants them to get to know what's going on and talk with kids who are heading for trouble.

He is adamant that watch volunteers reflect the makeup of the neighborhood, especially with black volunteers in black neighborhoods.

He learned the importance of this in heading Operation Weed and Seed in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. The goal was to weed out crime with concentrated federal and local efforts in some of the most troubled neighborhoods in the nation and then seed programs to bring economic recovery and prevent regression.

One project in Hispanic neighborhoods wasn't working well, and Phelps found one reason was that there were no Hispanic community police officers, nobody who looked like, talked like or understood the folks there.

Why? Phelps was told that Hispanics couldn't pass the police tests.

"Then change the tests," he demanded. If none of the many intelligent, capable Hispanics could make it, there was something unfair about the tests.

Phelps doesn't have to do this.

He's already involved in many projects elsewhere.

In New Orleans, his efforts to turn troubled McDonough High School into a school with culinary training for jobs in that city's great restaurants brought such success that the state recently announced $35 million in funding for the facility.

In Memphis, Phelps will be commencement speaker next week at the Soulsville Stax Music Academy Charter School, also in a troubled area, that he has helped to promote. All students in this first graduating class have been accepted for college.

Phelps doesn't have to do this in South Bend.

But one compelling reason is the advice of former Notre Dame President Theodore M. Hesburgh, who urged him after coaching days to do more than just work on TV and mentoring projects. Phelps says that Father Hesburgh, champion of civil rights, would want him to work now for a very

important right for youths amid violence -- the right to live.

Jack Colwell is a columnist for The Tribune. Write to him in care of The Tribune or by e-mail at jcolwell@comcast.net.